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an intuition is a familiar strategy. systems other than natural language : `. . . . a storehouse filled by the members
Barthes however attempts beyond this `The Elements here presented have as of a given community through their
to grasp the operation of the production their sole aim the extraction from active use of speaking, a grammatical
of sense in a non-metaphorical expression, linguistics of analytical concepts which system that has a potential existence in
to describe the way myth works in we think a priori to be sufficiently general each brain, or, more specifically, in the
structural terms independent of to start semiological research on its way." 3 brains of a group of individuals. For
individual manifestations. To this end he As his point of departure Barthes took language is not complete in any speaker;
turns to the schema offered by linguistic the work of the Swiss linguist it exists perfectly only within a
science. Ferdinand de Saussure, whose Course collectivity."' Parole on the other hand
The formation of structural in General Linguistics appeared, three is a purely individual act of selection
descriptions of social phenomena years after Saussure's death, in 1916. involving in its performance individual
according to linguistic models may be In the Course, Saussure had said : peculiarities of intonation, hesitations,
recognized as a 'structuralist' strategy. A science that studies the life of signs within mistakes, accent, etc: 'In separating
This is not the place to survey the field of society is conceivable; it would be a part language from speaking we are at the
so-called Structuralism. Obviously, of social psychology and consequently of same time separating: I) what is social
provided it is not completely amorphous, general psychology; I shall call it from what is individual; and 2) what is
any phenomenon may be described in semiology (from Greek semeion `sign'). essential from what is accessory and
structural terms and there are few Semiology would show what more or less accidental.' "
insights into Structuralism to be gained constitutes signs, what laws govern them. The majority of modern linguists
from a meditation on the word 'structure'. Since the science does not yet exist, agree with the methodological necessity
We might in fact concur with the view no-one can say what it would be; but it of the distinction between langue and
that `. . . Structuralism exists only for has a right to existence, a place staked parole. Chomsky's concepts of
those who do not participate in it'. ° out in advance." 4 `competence' and 'performance' make
It should be emphasized therefore that Saussure predicted that linguistics was roughly this distinction, but they
what follows is not a description of destined to become simply a part of this diverge on the question of the criteria
Structuralism but only of an aspect, or general science of signs. Fifty years after upon which the distinction is to be made.
type, of structuralist analysis. Saussure, however, Barthes observed: For present purposes it is sufficient to
Particularly, in the main, the type `. . . . though working at the outset on note that individual utterances, or speech
associated with Roland Barthes, more non-linguistic substances, Semiology is acts (parole) are taken by linguists as the
particularly the Barthes of Mythologies, required, sooner or later, to find language empirical evidence of an underlying,
Elements of Semiology, and Systeme de la (in the ordinary sense of the term) in its communally understood system
Mode. As Structuralism enjoyed such a path, not only as model, but also as (langue). It is this system of elements,
vogue in the 'sixties, at least in France, component, relay or signified. Even so, rules, and relations which determines
it may be all the more tempting now for such language is not quite that of the the common structural characteristics of
those who gave scant attention to the texts linguist : it is a second-order language, individual utterances, and it is this
in the first place to dismiss it as passe. with its unities no longer monemes or system which the linguist aims to
Like any other scientific postulate, phonemes, but larger fragments of describe.
however, the classic framework of discourse referring to objects or episodes It is necessary at this juncture to
structuralist analysis will 'live whose meaning underlies language, but emphasize two important facts :
dangerously' until replaced by a more can never exist independently of it. I) the elements of the system are
promising set of hypotheses. As Barthes Semiology is therefore perhaps destined defined only in their relationships with
himself has put it : 'If one agreed to to be absorbed into a trans-linguistics . . . other elements of the system;
define the social sciences as coherent, In fact, we must now face the possibility 2) evolutionary, historical relationships
exhaustive and simple languages of inverting Saussure's declaration: are irrelevant to the description of the
(Hjelmslev's empirical principle), that is linguistics is not a part of the general system. The first point concerns
as operations, each new science would science of signs, even a privileged part, it Saussure's notion of value, the second
then appear as a new language which is semiology which is a part of linguistics.'15 his notion of 'static' or synchronic
would have as its object the metalanguage description.
which precedes it, while being directed Elements of Semiology is constructed Barthes remarks that the effect of the
towards the reality-object which is at the around the discussion of four pairs of idea of value `. . . . is to depsychologize
root of these "descriptions"; the history dichotomous concepts, named in the linguistics and bring it closer to
of the social sciences would thus be, in a headings to the book's four chapters : economics'. In both economics and
sense, a diachrony of metalanguages, and Language (Langue) and Speech; Signifier linguistics we are dealing with a system
each science, including of course and Signified; Syntagm and System; in which dissimilar things are exchanged
semiology, would contain the seeds of its Denotation and Connotation. The first (work and wage, signifier and signified)
own death, in the shape of the language three pairs come from Saussure's and also in which similar things are
destined to speak it.'11 The texts resumed Course, and the final pair is from the contrasted: a 5p piece may be exchanged
here have been extensively discussed writings of the Danish linguist Louis for a newspaper or a bar of chocolate, but
elsewhere, and now belong to a history Hjelmslev. In each chapter, Barthes it also has a place in a system in which it
of semiology. However, I make no first describes the linguistic concepts in stands in contrast to a 2p piece and a
apologies for representing them at this some detail and then suggests their 10p piece. The French word 'mouton'
present juncture, because art and possible applications outside linguistics. covers both the live animal and the
photographic theory and practice in cooked meat on the table, whereas the
Britain and America have not yet Language (langue) and speech English term 'mutton' covers only the
confronted them. In its experienced totality, the meat. The value of the English term
phenomenon of language (le langage) `mutton' is partially derived from its
III consists of a complex of disparately based co-existence with the term 'sheep', that
In a publication of 1966, Roland events: psychological, physiological, is to say, from the opposition
Barthes remarked that : 'The present physical, social etc. Saussure saw that a cooked/living.
pre-eminence of linguistic problems is properly constituted science of linguistics The concept of value is of fundamental
irritating some people, who see it as an must disengage its own object from this importance in structuralist analysis.
excessive fashion . . . however . . . we phenomenological confusion. He It is this principle which denies the
have to discover language, just as we are therefore conceived of a general validity of conceiving the elements of a
in process of discovering space : our linguistics which, prior to the study of system as substantial individuals : 'For
century will perhaps be marked by these any particular language in itself, would instance, we speak of the identity of two
two explorations.'' provide concepts by whose means the 8 :25p.m. Geneva-to-Paris trains that
With Elements of Semiology Barthes proper object of linguistic study might leave at twenty-four hour intervals. We
had recommended that descriptive be isolated. This object Saussure called feel that it is the same train each day, yet
models from structural linguistics be la langue. Langue (`la partie social du everything—the locomotive, coaches,
tentatively generalized to signifying langage') is a purely institutional object: personnel—is probably different. Or if a
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